


Frozen

by Elenhin



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Gen, frozen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenhin/pseuds/Elenhin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is based, once again, on a line from the series One Word At A Time by the most generous and kind Aramirandme81. I asked for a few lines as challanges, to write a sort of 'well, it might have been like this' fillers on that line. </p>
<p>One line I was so graciously given was;          Frozen: She is frozen, a scream caught in her throat, and she can only watch as the gun is pressed against his head.</p>
<p>This is the story I wrote to go with that line, and I want to once more utter my deepest grattitude for being allowed to do this. </p>
<p>Disclaimer: The closest I come to owning this is owning my own three and one inch Fili figures, and a very vivid imagination....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> To Aramirandme81 for trusting me with your work, and encouraging me to do this, thank you

Frozen

Dawn is a fairly easy going woman, but she also have a strong will, and there are certain things she will not stand for. Anders calling her unreasonable early and demanding that she be at the office is enough to put her off. Officially she still have another hour before the day starts, and she had looked forward to a nice walk before she headed to the office, but apparently Anders has other plans. 

She never could quite understand how he managed to talk her around, but she finds herself on her way. The thing is that when she gets there, the office is empty. Anders isn’t there yet, and after half an hour he still hasn’t showed. 

Furious she calls him, both his home and his precious I-phone. He does not pick up at home, but the I-phone connects. Only for a brief moment though and then the line goes dead. 

At this point she is not quite sure if she should be angry or concerned, but eventually she opts for angry, very angry. She suddenly remembers the same thing happened once before, when Anders spoke to her over the phone while having sex. 

If he has done that to her one more time, she will quit. She swears it and she means it. Deep down she really cares for Anders, but there are limits to what she is willing to put up with, and he has just crossed all of them. Intending to let him know as much she grabs her purse and storms out of the office, barely taking the time to lock the door behind her. 

She lets herself into the apartment building, walking up the stairs to his flat. The door is ajar so she enters, an angry scowl on her face. One that changes when she takes a step inside and hear water dripping. Looking around the corner she is not really surprised by the mess, a night of sex and Anders’ flat can truly look like a bomb has struck. 

When she realizes that it is the fish tank that drips water though she is concerned, very concerned. Anders loves his fish, and he while she do not doubt he’d try anything as far as sex goes, she knows he would never risk the fish. 

There is a crack in the glass though, a piece missing and the water is trickling down onto the floor. 

This is wrong so very wrong and she finds she is terrified over what has happened. She is just about to call for him when she hears a voice, an angry voice and it’s not Anders. Actually she is not sure if she has ever heard Anders truly angry. He do not get angry, he gets sad and he gets disappointed. He can be very annoyed, but he does not get mad. 

She wants to get out of there and knows that she really should, but if something is wrong she would never forgive herself if she abandoned him. She knows to be cautious though and slips into the bathroom, quietly approaching the door to the bedroom and peaking through the crack. 

Anders is on the floor, huddled there with one arm on the bed as if to brace himself. His wife beater is torn and stained with blood and she can see how pale he is. The woman in there does not look up, but Anders does and he sees her and she can tell for he goes even paler and starts shivering. 

Dawn is terrified, in fact terrified do not cover it. She can only see a small part of the room through the crack, but the one thing she can see is the gun, muzzle hidden in Anders’ sleep ruffled hair

She is frozen, a scream caught in her throat, and she can only watch as the gun is pressed more firmly against his head. 

“No one lives in a place like this without being loaded with money!” the woman screams. “Give it to me, hand it over you cheap bastard. You had money to spend at the bar, now hand it over you scum.” 

She pulls back the gun a little, but thrusts it forward again, Anders whimpering as it connects with his head. 

“You got to have tons of money!” she screams again, and Dawn realizes that it is a robbery. She is still frozen though, can’t move. 

“I got a car,” he mumbles. “Take it if you want it.” 

“What the fuck do you want me to do with a fucking car?” she cries. “You’re pathetic, useless piece of shit, bragging to women when you don’t have shit. I ought to blow your fucking brains out.”

Anders do not answer to that, but Dawn feels sick, Anders is only seconds away from being murdered in cold blood, becuase some woman wants money he does not have at hand,

She has never seen a gun that close before, and it’s the most hideous thing she has ever seen. 

“Fuckingt waste of space!” she screams as she kicks him. Then she tightens her hold on the gun and smashes it right into Anders face. 

Dawn can see him go limp and crash to the floor as the woman storms out, and she knows she should go to Anders, but she is still frozen. 

The crazy woman is gone, but she can’t move and can’t talk, frozen to the floor unable to speak. 

Then she hears Anders groan and suddenly she can move again for the next she knows she is kneeling on the floor beside him. 

“Anders, oh my god Anders,” she whimpers, cradling his head in her lap. 

Anders whimpers and tries to pull away from her, his body still trembling and he’s breathing way to fast she can tell. 

“Anders, I have to...” she freezes again, not sure what she should do. Call an ambulance or the police? The crazy woman could come back, but Anders needs help right away. He’s bleeding heavily from his nose as well as several cuts on his face. Cuts the gun had left, there is blood in his hair, trickling down from where the barrel had been forced against his head so violently. 

“Dawn?” his voice is a barely audible whisper. 

“Yes Anders, I’m here,” she touches her hand to his cheek. 

“Hurts,” he mumbles, then his eyes flies open as he panics. “No, no, no! dawn, she’s, she’s mad. she’ll kill you! No!” he cries as he tries to get away from her and climb to his feet. Lurching forward he tries to support himself against the bed but collapses again. 

“She’s gone Anders, she’s gone and I’m here,”She grabs him to try and calm him down, but his reaction is not what she expects. Anders gives a choked cry as he throws his arms up to protect his head, then he falls down sobbing to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “Didn’t mean to, so sorry.” 

She has never seen him so scared, has never seen anyone so scared. He’s still gulping down air but she can tell it’s not doing him any good. 

“Anders, Anders!” she cries to get his attention. “It’s me, she’s gone. I need to call for some help. I need to call an ambulance.” She grabs the cover on the bed and pulls it over him. 

“No, no, no!” Anders shakes his head. “No, don’t, they can’t know!”

“Who can’t know Anders?” she had just been about to dial the number, but now she pauses. 

Anders blinks at her, moaning as he rubs his face. “Dawn?” 

“Yes Anders,” she confirms. “You have to go to the hospital, and I don’t care what you say. I’m calling an ambulance now.” 

“S’ okay I guess,” he mumbles. “Wasn’t mum, was it?” 

“No Anders, your mum isn’t here,” she thinks he must be worse than she first thought if he’s missing his mother. All she know about his mother is that she’s dead, Anders never talks about his family at all. She calls the ambulance and then waits for them to arrive, trying to keep Anders calm in the meantime. She tells the paramedics that it was a robbery, and she tells them about the gun. 

Anders is barely lucid, he can’t give satisfactory answers to their questions and neither can Dawn. What little he said while she waited with him makes no sense. one second he was scared out of his mind, crying and cowering. Clinging to her like a small child, and then he’s calm and in pain but trying to be brave. 

He says something more about his mum and his dad, but it makes no sense to Dawn who can do nothing but hold him. Then she can not even do that as he is taken in the ambulance. 

She wishes she could call his brothers, but she do not have the number to either one of them. Anders won’t let her and she knows there is no way to contact them unless Anders gives her that information. 

When they finally tell her she is allowed to see him she is reduced to pacing the waiting room. 

Anders looks a little better, but not much. The blood has been washed away but there is a bandage wound around his head and gauze patches taped to the side of his face where she had struck him with the gun. His nose is covered by gauze but black bruising shows from under it, spreading across his face. He looks so tired and weary as she approaches him and she is worried that she is intruding. 

“Hey,” it’s a weak greeting, but it’s all she can think of. 

“Hi,” his voice is small and weak, a hoarse croak rather than the soft voice she is used to. 

“Are you,” she meant to ask if he is okay, but it sounds so stupid when he so clearly is not so she breaks off. 

“Thanks,” Anders croaks. 

“What?” she blinks confused. 

Anders props himself up on one elbow, reaching for a cup of ice chips and she hurries forward to take it. He startles when she gets close to him so she bites her lip but helps him just the same. giving him a spoonful of the ice chips. 

“Thanks for helping me,” he states softly once she puts the mug down. “You should have gotten out of there Dawn, fuck, if she had turned around and seen you,” he chokes. “She was fucking insane.”

“I noticed,” Dawn mused. “She was robbing you?” 

Anders nods slowly, “my own fucking fault. Was out drinking, took her home, she was sweet then. No problem, said all she wanted was a quick fuck. Didn’t mind leaving, didn’t mind at all. I called you, when I turned around she drew a fucking gun on me and went all psycho.” 

“I’m so sorry,” she reaches for his hand but pulls back when he flinches away. “What, what was she doing still there when I got there?” she frowns. “It was over half an hour.” 

“Ransacked my flat,” he sighs and there is moisture in his eyes. “Looking for money. I don’t keep it there, so she got pissed. Fucking broke the fish tank, and now the fish might die, and I can’t do a fucking thing about it before I get out of here. His voice is thick and Dawn is shocked to realize that he is suddenly close to tears. “Don’t care about the rest, that shit can be replaced, but I don’t want the fish to die.”

“I’ll take care of it,” she promises. “I’m sure I can find someone to fix the tank. 

He looks at her in shocked surprise, “you’d do that?”

“Of course I will,” she frowns. “Anders, I was so scared for you, she had a gun, I thought she would kill you. I’ve never been so scared. I don’t know what to do to help you, but I guess that’s the most important now, as long as you are going to be okay.” 

“I’m fine now, justs tired,” he shrugs. “I got the number for the company that put it in there, it’s with the rest of the papers for the flat. You know where that is right?” 

She nods, Anders told her once when he went on a longer trip. 

“Are you really gonna be okay now?” she asked worriedly. 

“Yeah,” he nods slowly. “It’ll take a little while I guess, that was pretty fucking, scary,” he decides. “But I’ll be okay, just need a day or so to get my head straight. But Dawn, don’t ever do that again..” 

“Do what?” she frowns. 

“Don’t ever put yourself at risk like that, she could have seen you, don’t ever do it again.” 

“Anders, she had a gun to your head, I couldn’t walk away,” she frowns. 

“Dawn, you need to listen to me,” his voice is soft now, low and soft and sweet as honey. “If anything like that ever happens again, you can’t get in the way. You can’t put yourself at risk like that for me. It’s good you care so much, it’s good that you’re such a good person, but you should never, ever put yourself at risk like that for someone who’s not worth it. Do you understand?” 

“Yeah,” she nods. She remembers freezing with fear, how she had never before been so terrified, but she knows in her heart that should Anders ever be threatened that way again, she’d do the same thing. 

The End

Please cooment, the Cricket is hungry, and will continue to insist that the One Word At a Time should be read...


End file.
